The internet is a multi-layered network of global scale: it is the medium of e-mail, file transfer, chat, and more. But the majority of people equate the internet to the World Wide Web -- the vast ecosystem of interconnected websites that has become so important to business and day-to-day communication.

The Dawn of an Age

The internet itself began as an attempt of the U.S. military to develop electronic networks back in the middle of the last century, but the foundations of the web as we know it were laid down in the late 1980s, when Tim Berners-Lee started work on the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The first web page appeared shortly thereafter, in August 1991, hosted on the first web server, which was located at the CERN scientific laboratory, on the border between France and Switzerland.

It should be noted that before the world wide web, there already was a vast amount of communication and data transfer going on, but that was done using media like Usenet and FTP. In the absence of readily available software and cheap hardware, those were not exactly user-friendly.

The first web page (a copy is available here) was simple enough by today's standards, but it contained all the major features of its contemporary siblings: it was accessible via a web browser, linked to other documents, and structured content using HTML. The technologies that made it possible were proclaimed free (as in speech).

Back then the World Wide Web was intended to serve mainly a few technically skilled professionals, as well as scientists and academia. For several years the WWW kept a somber, utilitarian look: bell and whistles were virtually nonexistent, and simple text and rigid page structure reigned supreme.

The Long September

Eventually, during the 1990s, the world wide web opened to the layman. This was due mostly to two developments: first, companies started to connect homes and offices to the net, and, second, networks and software evolved to a degree that allowed people to get online without too much hassle.

The term "Long September" originally was meant to signify the never-ending influx of newly connected people to Usenet, but it also refers to the rise of the web page and the fading into relative obscurity of Usenet itself. Originally new Usenet users appeared once a year in September, as newly-accepted students were introduced to university-provided internet access. After 1993, as more and more homes got connected, that flow of internet neophytes became constant. The public for the world wide web show took their seats and waited.

Graphic browsers improved, improvements in HTML an the introduction of CSS made better-looking and more complex pages possible. Another important development was that monitor resolutions went inexorably up, which was both a chance and a challenge for web designers: they were able to create larger, more captivating designs, but in the same time they had to plan for multiple monitor sizes -- a designer's dilemma, that is with us to this day. Multiple online publications appeared, and every self-respecting company and media outlet showed up online. The shift from simple text layouts to complex web pages meant that professional web designers had to be employed in order to create visually appealing websites, in order to draw visitors. It is during that time when professional web design was born as a distinct profession; previously, in the early 1990s, web programmers were also the designers. Initially webpages were static, and resembled online brochures. That quickly changed with JavaScript and Flash, as interactivity and multimedia made their way into into web design. Server-side technologies, both proprietary and open source, lead to the separation of design and content, and the ability to store and visualize vast amounts of information on the web. Internet advertising, web hosting, and online stores quickly took off.

The World Wide Web would not be the so popular if not for search engines. As the number of web pages soared, separating useful information from the background noise became difficult. Companies like Altavista, Lycos and Yahoo came to the rescue by providing free search-by-keyword services and creating directories of web content. Eventually, Google appeared on stage, and quickly became the dominant superpower on the web. According to many internet metrics companies, today Google accounts for more than half of all online searches.

Hopes flew high, and vast fortunes were made online. Then the bubble burst, and many people felt that the web's promise had been exaggerated. They were to be proven wrong.

Present Day: Web 2.0

Web 2.0 was born in 2004, and according to wikipedia Tim O'Reilly has the honor of being the first to use the catchy phrase. For years before the term was coined, the internet was divided into the precious few who had the technical skills to support a web page and publish online, and the vast majority that could only watch the gurus do their magic. Truth be told, the internet's potential for collaboration and widespread user participation existed before Web 2.0 came along; thus, Web 2.0 is as much a matter of the right mindset as it is of technology. It is often stated that Slashdot was already Web 2.0 back in the 1990s. However, the fact that online collaboration has gone through the roof during the last couple of years is indisputable. One needs to look at sites like MySpace and Flickr to see just how much people love their online communities.

Web 2.0 is user-submitted and moderated content; it is pastel colors, RSS, and Ajax applications; Web 2.0 is Digg, Technorati, Google Maps, Netvibes, and many more. The bottom line is that a simple catch phrase, together with an accumulated momentum of improved user practices and technology, rekindled the interest in the World Wide Web, and today it is popular as never before.

The Future: A Ubiquitous Medium for Work and Play

What does the future hold? With the advance of technologies and the growth of the user base, the World Wide Web is becoming an ever more critical component of today's society. The enforcing of web standards and the improvement in technologies will lead to an even more accessible internet -- in fact, it is possible that incompatibility issues will diminish drastically. As a rule, every new edition of the popular browsers gets them closer to the W3C recommendations, and Opera is already almost there.

The rising popularity of mobile devices and RFID will bring the World Wide Web into the real world. Everything we do will be recorded somewhere online. The opposite trend is also evident: if World of Warcraft and Second Life are any indication, more people will transfer parts of their personal and business lives into virtual worlds, made possible by the web. Subsequently, government regulation of the internet will be an increasingly hot topic in the coming years.

In the coming years, we are likely to see web applications that are equal in capabilities to those available on the desktop. The distinction between the personal PC and the internet will blur, but are not likely to disappear completely.

The advances in software and the availability of various electronic devices will mean that everyone will be able to create vast amounts of content and share it online with the click of a button. This flood of people's memories online will mean that further advances in search algorithms will be needed.


And finally, do you think something important was left out of the history timeline or the predictions for the World Wide Web? Share your thoughts on the forums.